The Summist and Monoist fleets converge on Infinite Guideline while Pinnacle prepares evacuation. Sami refuses formal mallowmass because accepting it would make the station responsible for a fight the crew has brought. They dock under tacit arrest and give Checkmate Mantis the complete truth: Sigma, Kavaron, the massacre and the artifact that wants to leave Sothera.
Pinnacle already knows enough to be afraid. Vondam has confessed and warned that he would destroy the eternity column rather than lose the Endstone. A Drix called Barrow is present but offers no reassuring solution. As Sami talks, Haliya and Alpharael cross the station to steal a warp ferry. An impossible encryption key resists Alpharael's attempt to rely on a future revision.
Then creatures unlike any local life enter through the damaged station. Weapons can tear their bodies but cannot make their geometry obey familiar rules. The attack reveals that the battle around the Endstone is only the visible layer of the crisis. Old forces can smell a wound in causality, and Infinite Guideline has become an open door.